The chance of a lifetime

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The chance of a lifetime

Today, as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, we've been given a once in a lifetime opportunity to ensure that human rights are finally protected in Australia.

It sounds unbelievable, but Australia is the only democratic country in the world without formal human rights protections.

That's how our governments have got away with keeping children in detention, with leaving indigenous people without adequate housing, health and education services, and with everyday human rights abuses that take the form of bureaucratic bungles and discrimination.

Now, finally, the Government has opened up the conversation on human rights. Click here to tell them your vision for an Australian Human Rights Act that protects the values we all hold dear.

Imagine telling your children you had a hand in creating the Magna Carta, the US Declaration of Independence or the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. We have a chance now to fight for Australia's own nation-defining declaration.

But it won't happen without you - many in the Government are hoping there will be little community interest in a Human Rights Act for Australia. We know better - over the past three years you and 300,000 other GetUp members have campaigned to stand up for our human rights time and time again.

Even so, a modern democracy shouldn't have to rely on community outrage to ensure laws and decisions are right and fair. We need to find a way to make sure that human rights are taken into account when decisions are made, so that nobody falls through the cracks.

Click here to take the next step in building a democracy where our everyday rights are protected.

The kind of things we worry about on a day to day basis: job security, giving our kids a good education, paying rent to avoid getting evicted, getting good health care, or paying for childcare are all human rights issues that can be protected under a Human Rights Act.

A strong society is one where we stand up for our fellow human being, setting a standard for how they should be treated in both good times and bad, and sticking to it. We have one chance to set that standard. Be a part of this moment in history today.

Thanks for being a part of the solution,

The GetUp team

PS - Think freedom of speech or freedom from torture are protected in Australia? They're not. We're the only democracy in the world without human rights protection. Click here to tell the Government it's time for an Australian Human Rights Act.

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The map meme

Submitted by Fiona Reynolds on December 12, 2008 - 3:39pm.

This thread is in danger of going seriously off-topic. No more about Iran, thank you, Marilyn and Eliot.

Sarkozy is a fool

Submitted by Marilyn Shepherd on December 12, 2008 - 1:59pm.

No one in Iran threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Is the man such a cretin he can't read the articles that show all Ahmedinijad said was a quote from the Ayotollah from 40 years ago stating the zionist regime would end as would the communist regime in Russia?

I have no truck with Sarkozy as he is moronic.

And I agree that human rights have gone backwards but largely because of the lies and dishonest actions of the west.

Arabic media approvingly quote Ahmadinejad's threat

Submitted by Eliot Ramsey on December 12, 2008 - 2:30pm.

Marilyn Shepherd: "No one in Iran threatened to wipe Israel off the map."

Not only did Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threaten to wipe Israel off the map, but a range of Arabic and other Middle eastern media commented favourably on his threat to do so at the time.

This was in spite of repeated attempts by western apologists to obfuscate, mitigate or down-play the threat, and to even deny it happened.

For example, here are some leading Arabic media commenting approvingly on the threat:

"Whenever there is any initiative to condemn the Zionist entity, the big powers of the world move to protect this criminal country whose tanks, planes and aggression claim victims on a daily basis... Last week, Israel launched more than 30 air raids on Gaza alone, where many were martyred. This was not enough for Security Council members to consult on the continued massacres. The council did not however hesitate when Iran called for Israel to be wiped off the world map."

- editorial in Saudi Al-Jazeera

So, while Iran's apologists in the west busy themselves denying the threat was even made, Saudi Al-Jazeera openly boasts approvingly of it .

Here's another example:

"Is Israel the terrorist or Iran? The fury of Western capitals, and Moscow in particular, against the Iranian president's remarks on Israel indicates that these capitals perceive the world with an Israeli eye... They have allied themselves with a terrorist state that has spread wars and calamities in the Middle East... These capitals want nothing but for the terrorist and deadly Israel to stay, so that the people in the Middle East can go to hell! "

- Editorial in Egypt's Al-Jumhuriyah

You will note that Al-Jumhuriyah, far from denying the threat, also speaks approvingly of it.

There are plenty of examples of Arabic media acknowledging the threat was made. Some denounce it. Others approve of it.

None are so desperate as to actually deny it. They leave that instead to Iran's western propaganda slaves.

Why the constant effort by anti-Israeli proponents in the west to deny the threat, typically by quibbling about the precise transliteration of a statement whose general intentions are not in doubt in scores of Middle Eastern reports of the Iranian President's threat?

Why?

What rights

Submitted by Alga Kavanagh on December 12, 2008 - 8:20am.

“I think President Sarkozy is right that there is not a lot to celebrate for the UDHR at 60 compared to 50 but he's also provided a fairly good example of why we'll probably be saying the same things in ten years time.”

There's nothing to celebrate with regard to human rights, it's only gotten worse, even in supposed democratic countries supposed human rights are walked over every time it suits the agenda of those in charge.

Rudd may be making noises about a bill off rights for Australia, but you can be sure it will contain just those rights his ideological agenda accepts, which aren't really rights, but suppressions. The people should choose by electronic referendum the contents of a bill of rights and any legislation which affects the standard of living of the average person on less than $35000 a year, which is the majority and not just the elite as we always see occur.

On one hand we have the religious and bureaucratic political correct babbling incoherently about human rights and on the other hand they are doing everything in their power to make sure the people are suppressed by as many ridiculous suffocating laws and politically stupid demands as they possibly can. What they want is certain rights without responsibility, to go with their approach to life.

The only way to go froward and give equality of rights to everyone, is to get rid of the current political and bureaucratic system and replace it with a system which represents the realistic future. The first rights should be the right to survive the destructive onslaught of the economic and religious ideologies, currently destroying world societies.

A good example indeed

Submitted by Graeme Watson on December 10, 2008 - 10:13pm.

Dylan Kissane, I agree with your example that Sarkozy has "also provided a fairly good example of why we'll probably be saying the same things in ten years time." as his rep0eating claims about Iran that are, at best, questionable and resorting to somewhat inflammatory language is not likely to help find a diplomatic solution to the situation and thus enable progress to be made in the spreading of human rights.

As you chose to post a translation of the paragraph on Iran, perhaps you could have added a qualification as to the disputed nature of Sarkozy's claims.

Example

Submitted by Dylan Kissane on December 11, 2008 - 2:15am.

Graeme, I may not have been clear enough in explaining what I meant by President Sarkozy's "example".

In this speech the President chose to highlight issues in countries like Sudan and Iran while choosing not to highlight and, indeed, praising a state like China. In the light of other comments I highlighted in the speech - specifically those relating to human rights being universal - this sort of inconsistency seems to present a problem.

Thus, the "example" I sought to allude to is not the President's choice of language or his opinion on the Iranian regime but rather with the sorts of inconsistencies in our Western rhetoric on and approach to universal human rights that do little to provide hope that 2018 will be much different to 2008. Apologies for not making this clear.

More care lest

Submitted by Graeme Watson on December 11, 2008 - 4:42am.

you are mistaken as one of those unscrupulous people who propagate misinformation to forward an agenda, Dylan. They are particularly odious people who can leave death and destruction in their wake which present problems, and not only for their immediate victims, but more broadly.

Sarkozy on the Anniversary

Submitted by Dylan Kissane on December 10, 2008 - 8:58pm.

Our President spoke on the anniversary of the UNDHR and a few of his comments (my translation, not official) are worth repeating:

At the time of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, the world had the right to be optimistic. It emerged from a decade when the Berlin Wall fell and 80 million Europeans had regained their freedom...One could legitimately say, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that the world was progressing.
At the 60th anniversary, this optimism seems distant. The rise of terrorism, crises: financial crises, social crises, economic crises, the global warming. And everywhere in the world, this feeling that human rights in twenty-first century were going backwards instead of forwards...

The President sketched out one of the problems with the human rights discourse, particularly in the non-Western world:

We must first leave the false debates, especially the one that says that human rights are Western values, a stench of colonialism that we would impose on other parts of the world who have their own culture.
I do not share this view. When a woman is raped, she is denied [her human rights] regardless of the continent where the rape takes place. A woman circumcised, it is wounded regardless of whatever traditions exist in the country that imposes that barbaric practice. A man or a woman sentenced for his opinions is a man or woman who is denied their right to humanity...We have no right to hide behind culture, behind traditions...

The President talked of Sudan and the International Criminal Court before turning to Iran:

Let me also say a word of the situation in Iran. A people like the Iranian people, one of largest peoples of the world, one of the oldest civilisations in the world, refined, cultured, open, has the misfortune to be represented as it is today by some of its leaders. I told my friend Kofi Annan, that I can not shake hands with someone who has dared to say Israel should be wiped off the map. I know perfectly well that the Iranian President does not represent all the power in Iran, let alone...the Iranian people. I know perfectly that we must resolve what is perhaps the most serious international crisis that we have before us, the risk of Iran building the atomic bomb. We can not solve this crisis without talking to Iranian leaders. But I can not sit at the table, after what the Holocaust was, after what were the tragedies of the twentieth century, a man who dares to say that we must wipe Israel off the map.

Contrast this, though, with the President's embrace of China:

I went to the Olympics in China because it was a significant event, perfectly organised by the Chinese, and it was a success...I absolutely do not regret not having represented Europe, since I went with the agreement of 26 other Heads of State and Government of the European Union. I think deeply that China is a major world and a place in world governance must be made for China...I have always considered that there was only one China and, indeed, when General de Gaulle recognised China in 1964, it was recognised [as including] Tibet.

It should be noted that his opponent in the second round of the 2007 Presidential election was open to a boycott of the Beijing Olympics to put pressure on China over the situation in Sudan.

The distinction between tough action on Iran and a softer approach to China did not go unnoticed here but - in the midst of a financial crisis and with people seemingly more worried about atomic weapons near Europe than freedom of thought in Beijing - the objections were not made too loudly.

I think President Sarkozy is right that there is not a lot to celebrate for the UDHR at 60 compared to 50 but he's also provided a fairly good example of why we'll probably be saying the same things in ten years time.

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